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Being transparent would have meant trying to do something at committee, when under direct questioning on equalities issues, to highlight the fact that this had been coming for a very long time. The cabinet secretary has said that agreement was needed. I look forward to seeing the correspondence between the SQA and the EHRC in which it asked for that to be brought forward so that it could discuss the matter before the committee.

I move to an associated issue. My view, which I think is shared by other members of the committee—and certainly by members of the public to whom I have spoken—is that the performance by the leadership of the SQA in front of our committee last week was poor, even before the information came out the next day. I have had representations from the trade unions, which wrote to you at the start of September about their on-going role and with a submission about the terms of reference of the reform process. They have characterised your response of 21 September as “appalling”. You have said that you are very interested in that reform. I have looked at your response and I share their characterisation of it. Will you give them assurances, in the context of the comments that they made about the hundreds of members of staff who have been ignored by the leadership of the SQA throughout the past two years—in particular, over the debacle of the algorithm—as to whether their viewpoints are being taken into that reform process, and on how you are doing that?

Thank you. That would be great. Please respond to them in writing.

You will understand that, when the chief executive of an organisation—the person who leads that organisation—welcomes the announcement that the organisation is to be folded, the hundreds of staff who work for that individual and who she is charged with leading would be incredibly disappointed. Dr Robertson’s welcome for your announcement is a dereliction of leadership, in fact. Staff have made it clear that they want separate representation on that body—they do not have faith in the leadership of the SQA to represent their expert opinions and experience. I hope that you might consider that and write again to the trade unions on that basis.

If I could move to my last question—

That is superb. My last point is on a separate issue. A significant theme emerged from the evidence that the committee took and the conversations that we had with pupils across Scotland. They have all been very concerned about qualifications, as we have all been, but the challenge relates to what they have learned over the past two years. They have had a huge amount of time out of school. Have you and your officials assessed the knowledge and learning gaps and the impact of those? Has that informed your recovery plan?

That is critical. The document that you published yesterday does not contain any data about that loss. It talks about the equalities audit that took place in January. Everyone in Parliament and in the country would want to see a response that is based on what has happened. What has been lost? How much time has been lost? It does not seem to me that you have a full grasp of what that is. It is great that some measures might be forthcoming, but those must be in response to what has happened. I worry that the Government has not grasped the scale of the challenge.

You just do not know how much.

I am animated by the issue of digital skills, which pertains to my home city of Dundee and more broadly across the country. I am not convinced by the cabinet secretary’s analysis. We have a situation where companies offering computer games training or universities providing computing courses cannot make it compulsory for applicants to have passed higher computing, because there are not enough teachers to enable our kids to pass those highers.

It is reasonable for the convener to say that there is an issue with SDS, but there is more in the cabinet secretary’s portfolio that pertains to the issue of training. Those are not low-paid jobs; they are well paid. They are the jobs of the future and could be attracting investment.

There was significant upset among staff. I have spoken with trade unions, which have said that staff were upset by the announcement and the way that it was welcomed by the organisation’s leadership. Is it fair to say that?

I appreciate that.

Given some of the previous questioning, I am a little worried about the distance from Government and the extent to which some of the advice and expertise that can be drawn on—which, as you rightly reflect, is so important to the education system—is independent.

I want to look forward a little to next year, if I can, to pull everything together with regard to the plans that you have set out. In my view, the guidance that was issued on 15 September was lacking detail and clarity. I recognise the context in which everyone is operating, but young people and teachers need clarity. That has come through very strongly in the evidence that we have heard from young people—there was a complete lack of clarity last year and even less the year before, so we are looking for more clarity this year.

In particular, the guidance sets out that, if mitigations to exams are needed, those decisions will be left until March next year. It does not set out any detail on what criteria those decisions will be made on, so any comment on that would be useful.

In addition, it does not say whether decisions will be made pupil by pupil, school by school, council by council or Scotland wide. At what level will the approach be decided? Will disruption be experienced differently by pupils? We need more clarity on that, so it would be helpful if you could give us some comment and provide clarity for those young people.

Thank you for that clarification.